Pollak 1950 chivalry thesis

women and thus are less likely to chare or prosecute them, and are also treated more leniently in court. This skill in deceit mean that their crimes, such as poisoning and infanticide, are less easily uncovered (item A) leading to women being underrepresented in criminal statistics. Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the value of 'chivalry thesis 'in understanding differences in crime. Although these studies do give evidence towards the chivalry thesis, the bulk of research does not give this indication. Although the extent of this cannot really be measured, statistics would have us believe that the gap between male and female criminality is huge, but upon closer investigation this is not the case. Otto Pollak ( ) was a writer and a professor of, sociology at the, university of Pennsylvania.

His work has also been used in political debates, as some antifeminist or masculist groups have appropriated his work. Pollak goes further to argue that women are accustomed to deceiving men, for example in faking orgasms during sex, or lying in a relationship to gain material wealth. Gfg Pollak (1950) was of the opinion that police and magistrates tended to be more 'chivalrous' and 'lenient' towards female offenders, resulting in sentence disparities, and as a result, criminal statistics underestimate the amount of female offending. Pollak further argued that the criminal justice system was biased by preconceptions about women and did not convict or sentence women as harshly as men. Campbell through self report studies in 1976, of urban schoolgirls, compared to 16 year old males, these sources showed that.33 offences were committed by males for every.0 for females, this hugely contrasted to 1976 official figures on convictions, which showed.95 convictions for. Steven box 1981, reviewed data from self report studies in UK and USA, and concluded that 'the weight of evidence on women committing serious offences does not give clear support to the view that they receive differential and more favourable treatment from members of the. His empirical work has provided a starting point for criminology on women. Reasons for this may be that criminology and sociology is largely dominated by males that the research is done on males by males, leading to an underrepresentation on female crime, or that perhaps female crimes are comparatively seen as trivial and are not deemed worthy. This shows how official statistics can be greatly misleading, that although males may convict more crime, the gulf between the amount of offences shown by statistics, and popular opinion, is not as wide as it seems. Citation needed, retrieved from " p?titleOtto_Pollak oldid ").